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Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Program: Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is defined as the
ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. This
includes emotional self-regulation, problem solving, and modifying your own
behavior to impact the emotions of someone else (source: Psychology Today.com).

So what
about taking a step beyond just identifying a “happy” facial expression to
associating events related to emotions, processing ones own emotions, thinking about how your own actions impacts
what others feel, or moving
into more complex/multifaceted emotions like worry, guilt, disgust, jealousy, rage,
contentment, suspicion, or courage?

As I said
in my last emotions post, teaching emotions can get pretty complex!

This post
is about programs I may write for my more higher functioning, Aspie kiddos, who
often struggle mightily in the area of emotional intelligence. These kids are
usually very bright, so (sadly) they are aware that they don’t get called for
sleepovers, get picked first for teams at recess, or get invited to birthday
parties. They just don’t understand the why.

Unfortunately,
I often see higher functioning or older kiddos go without services or treatment
because on paper, they seem fine. They don’t need to be toilet trained, they’re
making straight A’s, they use Intraverbals all day long…their vocabulary
is more expansive than mine! However, when social functioning is assessed that
is typically where the deficits emerge.

What’s
that? You’d like some examples? Sure, no problem :-)

Therapist gives David a math
worksheet to complete. David reaches a difficult problem, and promptly
bursts into tears and shouts “I’m so stupid”, before ripping the paper in
half.

Therapist is at the park playing
a game with Kayla when another child walks up to join their play. Kayla
covers her nose with her hands and says “Wow, you smell”. The other child
starts crying and walks off.

Christopher is standing in the
lunch line at school when a student accidentally bumps into him. The other
child says “I’m sorry”. Christopher pushes the child to the floor. When
the teacher later asks Christopher why he did that, he says “That kid
picked a fight with me”.

Here are
some suggested strategies for teaching emotional intelligence, with a resource
at the bottom for teaching self-regulation:

(I would
present large, color photographs to my kiddo and ask them questions about the
photo. I would also work on generating discussion not just about the photo, but
about the child’s recent experiences, so we can gently step into discussing
THEIR emotions/feelings.)

What are
these children doing? What games do you like to play with your friends?

Is that
boy paying attention in class? How can you tell he isn’t? How do you think that
makes the teacher feel?

How does
this boy feel? How do you know that? Tell me about a time you felt sad/lonely. If you saw him what could you say to make him feel better?

What are
they doing? How would you feel if some kids did that to you? Whats a good way
to handle that?

How does
the girl in the middle feel? What do you think the other two girls are saying?
Tell me about a time you felt left out from the group. How did you handle it?

*Resource:
The Incredible 5 Point Scale by Kari Buron & Mitzi Curtis is an amazing,
super easy to read resource that uses a behavioral thermometer system to teach:
how to recognize your emotional state, how to determine an appropriate
reaction, how to identify triggers, and how to problem solve appropriate solutions
to deescalate once you have been triggered. It has tons of visuals, and I have
used it as a framework to write programs.